What’s important to understand about this space research is that it isn’t about space. It’s about how earthly cells and molecules react and change in the micro-gravity environment of space. The economic and social implications of that research could be huge.

For example, most medical research about how humans react to micro-gravity has been focused on preventing harm to astronauts. But space could have beneficial effects on cells that might lead to more effective treatments for various diseases and conditions. Research already is being conducted on the space station to see how micro-gravity changes bacteria, which could lead to more effective vaccines for dangerous salmonella and staph infections.

'What could the applications of all of this be? The answer is, we don’t know, which is the foundation for all science,' Kimel said. 'Many scientific breakthroughs come when you’re looking for something else.'

In brief presentations to the attendees at the first general session, Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, which is the managing partner for Kentucky Space, described how breakthroughs in science bring wealth, not just jobs. For a state like Kentucky, which leans heavily on well known and traditional industries, supporting this kind of innovation is critically important. Locations with concentrations of technical and human capital attract talent and investment. It's a virtuous cycle.

Later in the day, Kentucky Space students Jason Bratcher and Samir Rawashdeh detailed the work being done in Kentucky Space to develop a particular kind of talent and unique technologies during an extended poster display by organizations and companies doing cutting edge work in the commonwealth. With the recent launches of Frontier-1 and Monday's Discovery flight playing on a looping video nearby, passersby, who work with nano-technologies, and in the medical and material sciences themselves, were sufficiently impressed and many lingered to chat. The words "Kentucky" and "Space" next to each other have a certain shock value. But given its emphasis on building small spacecraft doing low cost, high value science, given the recent successes in launching these Kentucky-built craft, given the potential for standardized research in "plug and play" micro-labs built by students in Kentucky and set to be delivered by the now-docked Discovery (video below), that unfamiliarity may not last. Long known for its product on grassy field and beneath eastern mountain, Kentucky, instead, could become a place where talented people choose to stay and find discovery overhead.

October 06, 2008

In space essay on "lessons learned" in the past 50 years, Claude Lafleur reflects on the the space program and what it might take to really inspire the public about space programs. He asks that when talking about spaceflight, space partisans remember the startling successes of robotic exploration.

Of course, what interests most of us is space exploration, mainly
piloted flights and planetary exploration. But who is aware that one of
those two is booming with plenty of activities while the other is
arriving at a crossroad?

Never before in the history of humankind are we making so many
discoveries about our neighboring universe. Never in the fifty years of
space exploration have we seen so many probes exploring so many
interesting places in our solar system.

Right now, a half-dozen robots are working on the surface of and in
orbit around Mars, discovering what looks like traces of water. They
even make us think about possibilities of some microbial or other early
life forms on the Red Planet! Thanks to Cassini, we are discovering
lakes on Titan, the only place outside Earth where liquid exists on the
surface of a world. And what about the spectacular pictures this probe
sends us of Saturn’s rings and of its strange orbiting worlds? We’re
even contemplating the possibility of life in such exotic worlds as
Europa and Titan. There have also been a number of lunar missions
launched, or about to be launched, by Europe, Japan, China, the US, and
India.

There are also many probes en route to interesting places. While
Venus Express is studying our sister planet, MESSENGER will place
itself into orbit around Mercury in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Dawn will
extensively explore the main belt asteroids Vesta and Ceres. For its
part, Rosetta will orbit comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 and place
a lander on it. Finally, New Horizons will arrive at Pluto in 2015. In
fact, 10% of all probes ever launched are right now busily exploring
our solar system! But the public is rarely told about that.

Who knows what will ultimately happen to crewed flight beyond orbit - I'm a fan! - but given ongoing advances in miniaturization and emerging launch opportunities, there is
certainly no reason to believe that smaller organizations like Kentucky Space won't find their place in the solar sun, doing research, delivering data and training a new generation in the space sciences as part of a commercial space sector.

December 10, 2007

Last Wednesday 12/5 on a very chilly but clear morning in White Sands, New Mexico the KySat team received a stark reminder of just how risky getting to and operating in space is. We were all perhaps a bit overly excited about the mission and the tremendous job the student team had done in designing and building the Space Express payload. Prior to launch, at lift-off and early into the flight the Space Express systems and sensors were performing well. But later the rocket experienced a failure of the first or second stage of the launch vehicle causing the termination of the mission.

In retrospect, it's clear that our confidence, anticipation and inexperience obscured our objectivity a bit. In discussing the mission afterwards with a number of NASA and private sector space entrepreneurs and investors the response was always the same..."Welcome to the world of Space Flight". The fact is getting to and successfully operating in space remains very difficult. But if you are committed to building a bold and successful enterprise of this nature (as KySat is) you must deal with the inherent risks and launch, launch and launch some more. It's through the ups and downs of missions that real learning, innovation and progress occur.

While we achieved a number of our original objectives, everyone was very disappointed that we were not able to reach space. But after the initial shock wore off and we started the mission debriefing the consensus of the the team was clear: Let's build on what we learned and go again.